Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
block by block
SOREN
My phone rang while I was making coffee in Rook's kitchen, and when I saw “Dad” on the screen my first instinct was to let it go to voicemail and pretend I'd never seen it.
But I'd been working on facing hard shit instead of running from it, so I answered.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
“Soren.” His voice sounded different than I remembered. Clearer, maybe. Less rough around the edges. “I know you probably don't want to hear from me, but I was hoping we could meet. Talk. I need to explain some things.”
My stomach dropped. “Explain what?”
“Everything. What happened with your mother. Why I—” He paused, and I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line. “Please. Just give me an hour. That's all I'm asking.”
I should have said no. But there was a sincerity in his voice that I couldn't quite ignore, and before I could stop myself I was agreeing to meet him at a coffee shop in Toronto.
When I hung up, Rook was standing in the doorway watching me with an expression that said he'd heard enough to know exactly who I'd been talking to.
“Your dad,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“What did he want?”
“To meet. Talk. Explain himself.” I set my phone down on the counter and stared at it like it might explode. “I said yes.”
Rook crossed the room and pulled me into a hug without saying anything, and I let myself lean into him for a minute because the dread was already settling into my chest and I needed the reminder that I wasn't doing this completely alone.
“I'm coming with you,” he said eventually.
“No.”
He pulled back enough to look at me. “Soren—”
“I have to do this myself.” I touched his face, trying to make him understand. “Not because I don't want you there. Because I need to know I can survive this conversation without anyone holding me up.”
“I don't like it.”
“I know. But you've got practice anyway, right? Second game against the Raiders is in two days. You need to be there.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he just sighed and kissed my forehead instead. “Text me after. And if he pulls any bullshit, you leave. You don't owe him anything.”
“I know.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.” I kissed him properly, trying to pour all the gratitude and fear and love I couldn't articulate into the press of my mouth against his. When I pulled back, he was looking at me with those dark eyes that saw too much. “I'll be fine.”
“You better be.”
The coffee shop was one of those places that tried too hard to be quirky—exposed brick, mismatched furniture, a chalkboard menu that took five minutes to decipher. I spotted my dad immediately, sitting at a table near the back with two cups of coffee already waiting.
He looked different. Older, obviously, but also clearer somehow. His eyes weren't bloodshot, his hands weren't shaking, and he was wearing clean clothes that fit. The sight of him looking sober and present made my chest go tight with a complicated mess of feelings I didn't have names for.
He stood when he saw me, and for a second I thought he might try to hug me. But he must have seen the warning in my face because he just gestured to the chair across from him and sat back down.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
I sat and pulled one of the coffee cups toward me without drinking it. “You said you wanted to explain.”
“I did. I do.” He wrapped his hands around his own cup, and that's when I noticed the sobriety coin sitting on the table between us.
Dark medallion, worn edges, the kind they gave you in programs when you hit milestones.
“Six months,” he said, following my gaze.
“Six months sober. I wanted you to see it.”
I stared at the coin and felt anger and hope war in my chest. “Congratulations.”
“I know that doesn't fix anything—”
“It doesn't.”
“—but I wanted you to know I'm trying. That I've been trying.” He pushed the coin across the table toward me. “I want you to have this. As proof, I guess. That I'm serious about getting better.”
I picked up the coin and turned it over in my fingers. It was heavier than I'd expected, solid and real, and the date stamped on the back confirmed what he'd said. Six months.
“Why are you still with her?” I asked, setting the coin down. “If you're sober and she's not, why the fuck are you still married to her?”
He flinched like I'd hit him. “It's complicated.”
“Bullshit. Either you're choosing to stay with someone who's actively using, or you're not. That's not complicated. That's a choice.”
“She threatened me,” he said quietly. “When I told her I was going to get help. When I said I wanted to support you and the kids. She told me if I didn't go along with her plans—the custody fight, all of it—she'd make sure I never saw any of you again.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. “What?”
“She has lawyers, Soren. Money. Connections I don't have.
And she told me that if I sided with you, she'd use every resource she had to make sure I lost access to Poppy. To all of you.” His hands were shaking now despite the sobriety.
“I know that doesn't excuse it. I know I should have fought her anyway. But I was weak and scared and I thought—fuck, I thought if I just went along with it, I could at least stay in your lives somehow.”
I wanted to yell at him. Wanted to tell him that fear wasn't an excuse for abandoning us, that staying silent made him complicit, that he'd still had choices even if they were all shit. But I could also see the truth in his face.
“You could have told me,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I'd intended. “You could have called. Texted. Something. Instead of just disappearing and letting us think you didn't give a shit.”
“I know. You're right. I was a coward.” He looked down at his coffee. “I've been a coward for most of your life, and I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Soren.”
The apology sounded real and I didn’t know what to think of that.
We sat in silence for a minute, the noise of the coffee shop washing over us while I tried to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do with this.
“I forgive you,” I said eventually, and watched his head snap up in surprise.
“But that doesn't mean I trust you. Trust has to be earned back piece by piece.
Block by block. And it's not just me you have to prove yourself to.
It's Talia and Micah and Poppy too. They're the ones who had to live with the fallout of you checking out.”
“I know. I'll do whatever it takes.”
“And you need to understand that forgiveness doesn't mean everything goes back to normal. It means I'm willing to let you try to be better. That's it.”
“That's more than I deserve,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. It probably is.” I picked up the sobriety coin again and slipped it into my pocket. “What about Mom? What's the plan there?”
He took a breath, and I could see him bracing for whatever he was about to say. “I'm divorcing her.”
The world tilted sideways.
“What?”
“I filed papers last week. She doesn't know yet—my lawyer's waiting until after the custody hearing to serve her. But I'm done, Soren. I can't keep enabling her, and I can't keep pretending that staying married to her is helping anyone.”
I stared at him, trying to process what this meant. My parents were getting divorced. The woman who'd made my childhood a nightmare was about to lose her biggest enabler. The custody fight was about to get even messier because she'd be dealing with this on top of everything else.
“She's going to lose her fucking mind,” I said.
“Probably. But that's not my problem anymore.” He met my eyes, and I saw something in his face I'd never seen before—resolve.
Actual, genuine determination to do the right thing even when it was hard.
“I should have done this years ago. Before you had to step in and raise your siblings.
Before everything went to shit. But I'm doing it now, and I'm going to support you however I can in the custody fight.”
The conversation continued for another twenty minutes, covering logistics and timelines and the messy reality of trying to rebuild trust after years of damage. By the time I left the coffee shop, my head was spinning and my chest felt too full.
I walked through Toronto in a daze, letting the city noise wash over me while I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Then I found myself standing outside a sex shop without consciously deciding to go there. The window display was tasteful but unmistakable—leather and lace and the kind of items that made it very clear what kind of establishment this was.
I walked in before I could overthink it.
The interior was clean and well-lit, nothing like the seedy stereotype I'd been half-expecting. Shelves lined with toys and accessories, a wall of lingerie in every color and style imaginable, and a woman behind the counter who looked up from her phone and smiled.
“Let me know if you need help finding anything,” she said.
“Thanks.”
I moved through the store with purpose now. I wanted to go home to Rook and give him everything—my body, my trust, my devotion. I wanted to kneel for him not because I was broken but because I was choosing to offer myself completely.
The lace thong underwear was first. Red and delicate, the kind that would look obscene against my skin.
Then the stockings to match, held up by elastic that would dig in just enough to leave marks.
A collar—simple leather with a D-ring that made my pulse kick up just looking at it.
Leather cuffs for my wrists. And a paddle, solid wood, the kind that would sting perfectly.
I brought everything to the counter and the woman rang me up without comment, wrapping the items in tissue paper and sliding them into a discreet black bag.
“Have fun,” she said with a knowing smile, and I left feeling like I'd just armed myself for battle.